Petco Bites

Just a few weeks after paying Toys R Us more than $197 million for 124 Kids R Us stores, Office Depot sold 20 of the stores to Petco for $45 million plus lease obligations. These acquisitions will let Petco enter new markets such as South Florida and Northern Ohio. The remaining stores are in North Carolina (another new market), New York, Kansas, Illinois and Michigan. The former Kids stores range in size from 18,000 to 19,000 square feet. “The Kids R Us stores are comparable in size to a typical Petco store and therefore will likely require little in the way of remodeling,” says Smith Barney Citigroup analyst Bill Sims. Petco now plans to open 70 net new locations this year. Toys R Us still has 22 former Kids R Us stores to unload.